US East Coast power outages from Hurricane Sandy reach 8m

(REUTERS) - US East Coast electric companies say outages from Hurricane Sandy so far have hit more than 8.1 million homes and businesses, the US Department of Energy (DOE) said in a report early on Tuesday.

Sandy made landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey at about 8pm EDT (8am Singapore time) on Monday, the DOE said.

New Jersey was the hardest hit state with about 2.5 million customers out, about 62 per cent of the state total.

Other hard hit states include Connecticut with 31 per cent or 626,400 customers out; Rhode Island with 23 per cent or 116,300 out; West Virginia with 21 per cent or 212,100 customers out; New York with 21 per cent or about 2 million out; Pennsylvania with 20 per cent or 1.3 million out; and New Hampshire with 20 percent or 142,000 out.